My hands shook slightly. Should I tell them I’ve looked into Adam, too? Found out things about him that keep him in the running? Instead I asked, ‘Have you found any other relatives? Cleared anyone from the suspect pool that I could potentially connect with? That was part of our deal when I gave you my account information, remember?’ I said, my eyes darting back and forth between them.

Beck replied, ‘Until we have irrefutable proof of who TSK is, we need to keep this circle pretty tight, I’m afraid. Once we conclude our case, we’ll be happy to let anyone we’ve contacted know that you’d like to be in touch.’ She gave me a sympathetic smile, then asked, ‘Have you been in contact with any other relatives since we last spoke?’

A confession about speaking to Adam was on the tip of my tongue. But Hannigan was looking at me sternly, as if he was ready to reprimand me, so I bit back the truth. ‘No, I haven’t. But can you tell me more about Adam? Why do you think he doesn’t fit the profile as well as Cris?’

‘Well, Adam has lived across the Tri-State area and seemed to fit some aspects of the profile at first but we are gaining confidence that we can soon rule him out.’

‘What? Why?’ A shot of dread dropped into my stomach and a wave of nausea rolled over me. How could they be close to clearing him when the things I’d discovered seemed to line up so perfectly?

Beck looked at Hannigan who nodded, giving her silent permission to continue.

‘We’ve been combing through cell phone records and conducting interviews with potential alibi witnesses. Adam was very forthcoming with access to items such as old calendars, emails, event tickets, etc. Those pieces of information combined with the cell phone records we’ve gained, have led us to say with a level of certainty that there are several abductions he would not have been in the local vicinity for. We have more to confirm but we have not yet been able to rule out any of those dates for Cristian.’